I raced this weekend in Michigan and though the race officials said the water was 56, I heard it was closer to 45! I have been racing for years, but this was the first time, I have been so cold, I couldn’t get my arms to really move forward, my breathing became short and quick and I could hardly move.
It was crazy. I didn’t get my breathing back to normal until about 3 miles into the bike.
It wasn’t just me, there were guys all over flailing in the water. I saw one guy, grabbing another that looked like he was going down.
Besides calling me names, can anyone offer some helpful advice on how to deal with that kind of cold. Has this ever happened to you before?
I never swim with a wetsuit, but I’ve never swum in water sub-50 degrees. I swim regularly in the SF bay sans wetsuit and I find that it’s tolerable once you make the adjustment and get 3 or more 50-55 degree swims under your belt. Patience: start off slow, 15 minutes max, then work your way up to more time. But, - in the case of most triathletes, - that method is silly, considering you often wear wetsuits and also swim in much warmer temperatures. The fluke case as you’ve described is probably not worth the effort…
I doubt that it was 45, anyone there ever heard of that kind of temp in July??? 56 fresh water is cold enough to expirence all the things that you described, especially if you are not prepared. That would be like 49 to 50 ocean water. As someone else stated, you have to acclimate to it. Then you have to be mentally prepared for what will happen once you go hypothermic. You need a really good warm up in the cold water. You need to shunt blood to your skin before the race, before your body’s muscles and brain demand it after the start…And just like heat, you have to slow down, and keep your breathing at a more normal level, not the usual go out too hard and recover stragedy, that 99% of people use…Good job geting through it though, hope you had on lots of rubber…
"…anyone there ever heard of that kind of temp in July??? "
yes indeed. remember Shu’s, in '97or maybe ‘96’, nat’l pro title race that year. within a couple miles of the OP’s referenced venue. the big lake turned and was sub 50. the pros complained enough about it that the swim was shortened to something on the order of 300 yards point to point along the shoreline. it was cold enough my feet burned. i did a longer swim in the same conditions the day before at Grand Haven and pulled out after about a mile. comfortable that water was not.
the Great Lakes have a nasty habit of doing the unusual at the least expected moment. nice thing is they can turn back over to more normal temperatures in a day or so. trick is knowing when it is going to happen.
i sort of got into it with Tom D. a couple weeks back for crying wolf about sub 50 Lake Erie temps 5 days in advance of a 1/2 at Monroe. sure enough, by race day the temps were back in the 60’s to near 70.
rule of thumb about Great Lakes venues is always bring your wetsuit and beg, rent, borrow, or steal to have one in hand race day if you don’t own one.
